Does the 8 KPH speed limit not apply after sundown?

Can't comment on this year, but last year I was moored below Hambledon and was actually thrown out of my bunk by the wash of speeding boats after midnight (some of which were unlit, I noticed after I picked myself up from the deck). Never again. I did hear of one story of a narrowboat (let us say, 20 tons displacement) at Henley a few years ago being physically lifted up and dropped on the jetty by the wash of a speeding gin palace, breaching the hull.
As observed earlier, many of the cruisers on the inland Thames are really designed for the sea. Their twin turbo engines are running at idle like greyhounds on a leash; their hard chine hulls develop more wash than a displacement hull, even at the Thames speed limit. Also, by a paradoxical quirk of hydrodynamics, small inflatables and rowing coaches make as much wash as a cross-channel ferry (I may exaggerate a little here).
I can see that it must be tempting to 'open her up' when no one is looking, but the bottom line is that it is a lack of consideration for others and the Thames herself if you speed.
We can draw a little comfort in that the problem of wash is not as bad as in a typical tidal port - I was afloat at Brownsea Island a year or so ago and there seemed to be no speed limit there at all! It was distinctly lively.
 
There are a fair few out of season boaters that have opened up like that on quiet stretches. You can hear the engines when out walking along the river bank, but seldom get to catch them in the act. In fairness, they do very little damage compared to the river in flood when it's over the banks if no other boats are affected.
 
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